Italians gather for protest over US base expansion

VICENZA, Italy, Feb 17 (Reuters) Thousands of Italians gathered under heavy police guard today to protest against the expansion of a U.S. military base that has aroused strong opposition and divided the centre-left government.

Prime Minister Romano Prodi appealed to demonstrators to refrain from violence, following warnings from the US embassy for Americans to steer clear of the northern city of Vicenza, home to the 173rd Airborne Brigade.

The three-hour march, which Italy's interior minister has warned could attract people ''hostile to the forces of law and order'', was scheduled to begin at 1900 IST. Schools normally open today were closed as a precaution, with crowds expected to reach up to 70,000.

''My appeal to the demonstrators is...that the demonstration should be peaceful, calm and without violence,'' Prodi said in a radio interview today.

Prodi authorised the expansion of the base, saying he did not want to change Washington's ''defence policy of the past 50 years''.

The decision angered some of his own ministers and many left-wing and pacifist voters who elected him last year.

LIGHTNING ROD The demonstration has served as a lightning rod for anti-US sentiment in a country where judges have ordered CIA agents and a US soldier to stand trial for kidnapping and murder.

A Milan judge charged the CIA agents yesterday with abducting a Muslim cleric in Milan in a covert operation and flying him to Egypt. The US soldier was charged on February. 7 with murdering an Italian secret agent in Iraq, although both governments have described the 2005 shooting as an accident.

All will almost certainly be tried in absentia, since Washington is not expected to hand them over.

''I don't want any more Americans here and I don't want a new base. They should just leave us alone,'' said Pucci Mori, a resident of Vicenza, who lives near the proposed base expansion.

''Wherever they go in the world, Americans cause trouble.'' The protest is the latest headache for Prodi, who has faced revolts by his broad leftist coalition partners on everything from gay rights to the budget and the presence of Italian peacekeepers in Afghanistan.

The Pentagon wants to double the size of the base to unite its 173rd Airborne Brigade and expand its 2,750 military personnel to 4,500.

At present, the rapid reaction unit is divided among the base at Vicenza, about 400 km north of Rome, and bases at Bamburg and Schweinfurt in Germany.

The new barracks would be on the other side of the city of 115,000 people from the existing one. That has raised worries about new roads to handle military traffic linking the two parts, loss of green space and strains on public services.

Residents fear it could even put Vicenza in danger.

''The people of Vicenza are concerned. The base would be in the heart of the city and in the case of a military conflict it could become a target,'' said Nobel literature laureate Dario Fo, who has organised a play about the US base for later today.

REUTERS SP PM1829